......To stay competitive in the commodity market the wintel vendors are in price lowering spiral. The only way Gateway is gaining marketshare but by making near zero profit.... Apple will gain marketshare by purely outlasting these companies as some of the fold.

Yeah, they've painted themselves into a corner, with very aggressive marketing but little to no innovation whatsoever. While I am sadistically happy to see Dell squander(though I might have to work in one of their call centres someday, no joke)... It's like a big whale being devoured by a bunch of piranhas. Given everyone being so hopelessly dependent on the Matrix...er, I mean Windows, most people will still want their PC shitebox and businesses will still force users to use Windows, Outlook, Office, and other such things.

Apple will be like an island surrounded by piranha-filled waters. Luckily though in this "island" the special sand called OS X will keep those nasty piranhas at bay.

When the piranhas have eaten up the bigger whales and fish they will then start eating each other. Good fun to watch.

*Gets a Sprite and some Snickers bars and pulls up a lawnchair next to blackbird. Wassup dawg?*

"Rollins, 53, took over from Dell founder Michael Dell. Since then the company has stumbled in efforts to generate growth, failing to attract U.S. customers with consumer products and alienating consumers with poor customer service."

If I am correct Dell was build on the dotcom vision where goods/services are purchased online and is the equivalent of a drive-thru at a fast food restaurant. If so, did Michael Dell make his exit before the house started a tumblin' down or is Rollins just inept?

So, how many of the "Apple needs to sell in the extremely low cost whitebox market!" folks still think this is a good idea?

Heh. Dell's US market share is about 33%. Apple fanatics with nothing but market share on their minds will think about massive aggressive pricing to make Apple affordable along with big advertising blitzes and very heavy marketing all coming out of the 8-9 billion cash reserve. Yes, then have extremely low cost whiteboxes out there, and license OS X [dual-boot WinXP] to any PC manufacturer that wants it. Take licensed OS X into account of market share figures, Apple throwing huge amounts of investments into becoming bigger, and you'll see market share grow. Also, don't forget more huge chunks of money and salespeople thrown at the corporate market to have Apple run dual-boot OS X/ WinXP and throwing XServes running SQL Server and/or Windows Server cheap to the corporations.

But ummm... yeah, AAPL stock will tank, Apple will run at break-even on the accounting books, but it might have 20% market share!!! w0000t!!!

Maybe Steve's final 3-5 year push before he steps down is the goal of dominance in the global PC marketplace. Throwing everything at the market to hit 1/3 of all PCs and Servers in the World, including OS X [Windows dual boot] running on almost *any* whitebox manufacturer/ assembler.

Apple will become a household name like Dell and Microsoft. But financially it will be totally ass-wrecked ala Dell and Microsoft, and it's entire corporate culture ravaged.

Wow, this is like a doomsday scenario. Let's just remember to paint this picture for Apple fans that clamour for 10-20% market share and low-cost low-margin Macs at the expense of a lot of other important stuff.

That said, I think that there is a little bit of space still within normal Apple financial boundaries to have a $399 Mac Midi-Tower Celeron M (based on 65nm Yonah) with 512mb RAM, 7200rpm IDE drive, 15" LCD thrown in for $100 extra.

Damn, I totally contradicted myself but I just want ONE model just to rub it in the face of EVERY BLOODY IDIOT I'VE COME ACROSS that's said APPLE IS TOO EXPENSIVE, waa waaa waaaaa..!!!!! ARRRRGHGHGHGHHGHGH

It's not going to get any better for Dell in the short term. They don't have the product portfolio that HP and IBM have. Lenovo has cheap manufacturing. Almost all companies are competing against Dell so hard that if Dell enters into a deal by the time it's all said and done if Dell wins they're under water.

HP has its printer and supplies business to balance things out. IBM has its big iron stuff.

Dell could begin to acquire a bunch of companies but that's a financial drain and takes time.

The "Direct" model of sales aren't doing the job as much anymore. You can't sell products anymore you have to be able to sell a solution and it's easier when you have a vendor that can provide most of the solution with branded product and support.

Dell isn't bad here but they just don't match HP and IBM. Apple is insulated from this because they're not Wintel cloners nor are they trying to dominate the Enterprise.

Heheheh I LOVE it. The party is over over Michael it's time to pay the piper. Dell is jumping the shark and from my pov it is a blast to watch.

Dell computers at least in my opinion are extremely overprices. They attempted to get into the gaming nitch but gamers arent into buying Dells, being one myself your almost always going to go custom.

Also there are only so many people that need computers and only so many upgrades that are going to happen each year. The average user just doesnt need to upgrade that often.

Dell and HP still pretty much have a hold on hardware sales. Buy todays standard and the fact that the computer has become a house tool to think of spending 3500.00 gaming Dell system just seems insane to me. If microsoft and other OEM programmers could actually code software corretly you wouldnt need all those crazy hardware specs. Most of the coding is junk.

...If microsoft and other OEM programmers could actually code software corretly you wouldnt need all those crazy hardware specs. Most of the coding is junk...

I think that game developers are making the most out of OpenGL and DirectX, and producing some satisfying, exciting, visually-rich games. Get an nVidia 7600GT, a single core Athlon64 2ghz+, 7200rpm sata, Asus motherboard, and a few other bits and build your own PC. It'll be cheaper, you'll have fun, and you'll forget your bitterness about "most of the coding is junk".

Better yet, as I have reflected on sometimes, yes, hardware requirements for modern PC gaming can be trying at times. So get a Mac or el-cheapo Dell for Internet and stuff, and just get a PS2 or XBOX360 and forget about PC gaming.

It's not going to get any better for Dell in the short term. They don't have the product portfolio that HP and IBM have. Lenovo has cheap manufacturing. Almost all companies are competing against Dell so hard that if Dell enters into a deal by the time it's all said and done if Dell wins they're under water.

HP has its printer and supplies business to balance things out. IBM has its big iron stuff.

Dell could begin to acquire a bunch of companies but that's a financial drain and takes time.

The "Direct" model of sales aren't doing the job as much anymore. You can't sell products anymore you have to be able to sell a solution and it's easier when you have a vendor that can provide most of the solution with branded product and support.

Dell isn't bad here but they just don't match HP and IBM. Apple is insulated from this because they're not Wintel cloners nor are they trying to dominate the Enterprise.

Murch I think you're being a bit harsh on Dell. They are still profitable but only becoming less profitable. That's a problem they can solve.

IMO, I think they ran into two headwinds which have hampered their growth. One is their reliance on Intel chips. Over the past 2-3 years AMD has had Intel's number. Other vendors were quicker to offer AMD chips in their products than Dell and HP in particular has dug into Dell's marketshare. Heck when my wife bought a pc(which she now regrets) I made sure she bought a HP machine with an Athlon chip. Core 2 should eliminate this problem. Dell is an Intel shop(for the most part) and Intel is back on top.

Problem two is vista's delay in making it to market. When it finally makes it to market it could spur pc sales and Dell will get their fair share. Then again vista's well publisized flaws may limit it's adoption and pc sales may continue to stagnate. I think this issue worries Dell the most. They dont' have any controll over vista. If it sucks and people don't buy pcs the Dell gets hurt the most.

Hey hmurchinson don't be too harsh on yourself. I'm not sure what sort of PC/Mac independent reseller setup you have going on there, but yeah, for what it's worth, I'm sure some of us are behind you and, you know, you gotta do what you gotta do. F*K Dell, get those accounts, slip in a few Macs while you're at it.

I am sure Dell's answer to this is cut cost and make the boxes cheaper.

And this will improve their profits how exactly?

[QUOTE]Originally posted by aplnub

That means that approximately 3% of the total PC market are gamers. That clears up a lot of why Apple doesn't make the ultimate gaming machine threads.

Certainly. Ironically, the MacBookPro and iMac Retail are decent gaming machines for satisfying mid-level quality playing of the latest PC games in BootCamp. For the first time ever. Ah, the wonders of technology - the side benefits you didn't expect.

Note: "Gamers", "Ultimate Gaming Machine" are all pretty subjective. If you or any article are talking about hardcore gamers (SLI'ed nVidia 7600GTs being the absolute BARE MINIMUM), then those are much less than we might think.

Well if Apple continues to make huge peices of crap like the MacBook they will never make any head way. My crappy Dell has never needed service and if it did they would come out and fix it. Oh and it was cheaper than the MacBook which is now sitting in limbo in a Apple repair center awaiting a new logic board that is on back order. Years and years of Apple loyalty but now I am fed up.